Board Memberships and Affiliations

Director

Lucas Heights Research Establishment

Director

AAEC

Education

AM FTSE MSc

Keith Alder was Director of the Lucas Heights Research Establishment, Australian Atomic Energy Commission, from 1962-1970.He also lectured in metallurgy in New South Wales and Victoria and worked in the United Kingdom.

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After completing his science masters, Keith Alder worked for a year as a metallurgist for the Tungsten Plant Ammunition Factory in Footscray.He then moved to New South Wales for a two year lectureship in metallurgy at Newcastle Technical College.
From 1946-1948 Alder was a senior scientific officer for the Ministry of Supply Atomic Weapons in Woolwich, London.He returned to Australia and was appointed senior lecturer in physical metallurgy at the University of Melbourne from 1952-1953.The Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, England employed Alder from 1954-1957.In 1955 Alder was appointed head of the Metallurgy Section at the Lucas Heights Research Establishment run by the Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC).He remained with the AAEC at Lucas Heights for over twenty years taking on many roles including Director, Head of the Development Group, Head of the Nuclear Science and Technology Branch and was General Manager from 1976-1982.Keith Fredrick Alder was appointed a Fellow, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE) in 1977 in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field.He was also made a Fellow of the Institute of Metallurgists (FIM) and the Institution of Radio and Electronics Engineers Australia (FIREE).

Australia Should Establish a Nuclear Power Industryu in the 21st Century, Keith AlderATSE - Alder

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Keith Alder

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Keith F. Alder AM FTSE MScKeith Alder graduated in Metallurgy in 1943 at the University of Melbourne and after periods in research, industry and lecturing, joined a team in the UK Ministry of Supply for two years of research on nuclear materials. He joined the newly-formed Australian Atomic Energy Commission in 1953, and then spent four years at Harwell in the UK working on nuclear reactor fuels.He returned to Australia in 1957 as Head of Metallurgy for the AAEC.He became Director of the Lucas Heights Research Establishment in 1961, a Commissioner in 1968, the AAEC's General Manager in 1976, and retired in 1982.His principal tasks in the AAEC were technical management of the Jervis Bay Nuclear Power Station project, Australia's international uranium enrichment studies, and initiation of the AAEC's own uranium enrichment research programme.

Retired nuclear scientist Keith Adler, formerly the head of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, recently told a federal inquiry that anti-nuclear views were commonly taught in schools in the early 1980s.

"At [the] Lucas Heights [nuclear research centre] we had the experience of sending literature to high schools and it coming back, sometimes torn in half," he said.

The history of the AAEC has been very concisely recorded by its long-time director Keith Alder in a 1996 book, tellingly titled, Australia's Uranium Opportunities: How Her Scientists and Engineers Tried to bring Her into the Nuclear Age but were Stymied by Politics.

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However, Alder maintains, "In retrospect, the Jervis Bay Nuclear Power Station would have been a tremendous bargain if it had gone ahead....